Lossless audio coding algorithms are typically precluded from real-time streaming applications due to their undeterminable and often excessive bit rate. This restriction is often most stringent in wireless communications, where power consumption and complexity are restricted.
As the bandwidth and latency of wired and wireless communications technologies continues to improve there exists new applications for audio streaming in, for example, consumer electronics such as modular home audio networking systems, portable media players (PMPs) and wireless speakers.
It would be desirable to utilize this increasing data bandwidth to perform real-time wireless streaming of audio data coded in a lossless or near-lossless format. In particular, it would be desirable to be able to stream audio data at lossless, or at least perceptually-lossless, quality over a transmission channel having bandwidth that is insufficient to support direct transmission of uncoded audio data.